CIMB group chairperson Nazir Razak last night poked fun at his lieutenant Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, who is CIMB Islamic chief executive officer, for Badlisyah’s attempt to discredit banking documents purportedly showing multi-billion ringgit deposits into the prime minister's private bank accounts.
The documents, which included Swift messages, were released by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday to back up its report that US$700 million in public funds were purportedly deposited into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's personal bank accounts.
Taking to Instagram, Nazir posted a photograph of CIMB group chief executive officer Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz showing former CIMB group chairperson Mohammed Nor Md Yusof something on his mobile phone as CIMB Islamic chairperson Syed Muhamad Syed Abdul Kadir looked on.
Nazir then captioned: "Zafrul and Syed showing a surprised Md Nor the Facebook posting by Badli (Badlisyah of CIMB Islamic) on WSJ article."
On a serious note, Nazir promised that action would be taken over the matter.
"Posts have been removed as it is a technical matter on which he should not be commenting.
"Our apologies, we will conduct an internal inquiry," said Nazir, who is the prime minister's younger brother.
Yesterday, Badlisyah raised doubts on the banking documents purportedly implicating Najib, claiming that there were discrepancies in the Swift Code and also the sender's bank address.
As such, he concluded that the documents were fraudulent and expressed surprise that WSJ "fell" for them.
This was with regard to the Swift messages on two transactions, involving US$619,999,988 and US$60,999,988, said to be from Tanore Finance through Wells Fargo Bank to accounts allegedly controlled by Najib.
The argument was subsequently widely circulated among pro-Umno blogs in defence of Najib.
However, Malaysiakini which scrutinised Badlisyah's claims found that there were no discrepancies in the sender's bank address.
Malaysiakini also pointed out that Badlisyah erroneously attributed the Swift Code listed in the documents released by WSJ to Alfa Bank Moscow.
Subsequently, Badlisyah in a statement conceded his mistakes.
"The mistakes were correctly pointed out by a report in Malaysiakini on the matter, and I have also made the correction on my Facebook page," he said.
However, in his updated Facebook post, Badlisyah still insisted the documents were fraudulent.
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